Congratulations to Francesca's Italian Restaurant owners, management and staff, for winning a prestigious Food and Drink Awards Lux 2017 for Best Italian Restaurant!

Discussing the awards and the success of all award winners, Katherine Benton, the awards coordinator, comments: “What we eat and drink shapes the way we view an establishment, therefore it is of the utmost importance to the hospitality industry. Therefore, it is a great pleasure to be able to showcase the excellent quality services and products that these excellent winners have to offer.”

Tankiu tumas Franceska! You have placed both the restaurant and Vanuatu on center stage in international cuisine! Grazie mille!

Visit and dine at Francesca's when you're next in Vila. The fabulous establishment is located on the calm and crystal waters of Havannah Harbour just 30 minutes drive out of Port Vila.

Whilst parents are still trailing behind, these kids want to get home fast, prepare island spinach, grate coconut for mum to later do lunch, and play football while waiting.

Life is never boring in the islands. There is always something to keep the little ones including mums and dads occupied, and everyday its the gardens where villagers head to in the break of dawn to clean and harvest vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, and check their chicken & pig traps to see if they're lucky. Just an everyday thing the locals do in the villages.

And now that Christmas is just around the corner, the fun and festive vibes are more visible as people start to decorate their place with coconut leaves, ornaments are usually bundles of green coconuts, bananas and pineapples hanging down from the kitchen beam, suger canes, gingers and lillies are tied to kitchen posts.

Vanuatu has a booming cocoa industry and its homemade chocolate is winning awards around the world, writes Ben Bohane. Who doesn’t like chocolate? It’s only been 500 years since Europeans first brought the cocoa beans out of Mexico and south America, but since then the whole world has succumbed to its rich, velvety texture and taste-bud explosion.

It’s almost as if no dinner is complete without a little square of the dark delight afterwards and every culture has embraced it.